Chapter 33
Go out with us!” Jill says, falling onto my bed next to me.
I shake my head. “Don’t feel like it.”
What if Sam was to call? Classes start in three days. He has to come back soon. I haven’t seen him since the night Seth freaked out at their last concert, three weeks ago. There have been a few calls and texts to each other, but I hate the distance between us. He is at his parents’ house right now, but I can’t stop worrying about the last text I got from him. It was days ago, and I’ve been preoccupied with it because it was so utterly impersonal. The short lines won’t stop running through my head and making me apprehensive: Home now at my mom’s. Still straightening things out. Hope to call you soon.
Jill elbows me. “You can’t stop your life and wait for Sam.” The day I came home, I told Jill about Sam and me. Strangely, she wasn’t all that surprised, and admitted she knew back in high school there was something between us. Too bad she couldn’t have told me then, when I was blind to it.
“True,” I say with a sad sigh.
“Forget about the asshole!” Jill says, sitting up. “Let’s go out!”
I smile weakly. Sam being there for his brother does not make him an asshole. Even if Sam decided to end things with me because of his brother, he wouldn’t be an asshole. It would destroy me, but the only thing I’d be angry about would be the unfairness of Seth’s stupid mind-twisting disease. I couldn’t be mad at either of the brothers. They’re both hurting too.
Jill tugs at my arm. “You’ve been moping around for a week now. Enough!”
I let her pull me up, and she goes to my closet, flicking through clothes. Once she’s done, I raise an eyebrow at the outfit laid out on the bed. “Really?”
She nods vigorously. “Hell yeah. Nothing better to get you out of a funk than a multitude of guys hitting on you.” She bends over to search for shoes.
I frown at the tiny skirt and bustier top. “I don’t want guys hitting on me,” I say miserably.
“Peyton!” Jill flies up to face me. “You’re going out. You’re going to have a good time. I’m tired of looking at your sad little face.”
It probably has been annoying for her to deal with the despondent expression I must have been wearing constantly the past week.
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m not wearing those.” I gesture to the heels in her hand.
“Deal,” she says, tossing the shoes over her shoulder and back into the closet. “You got twenty to get ready and then the party bus is outta here.”
“Your piece-of-shit car is hardly a party bus,” I grumble as she marches out of my room.
“Twenty minutes!” she yells from the hallway.
Of course, twenty minutes later, Jill is applying more makeup to my features. I didn’t put on enough, apparently. Then she’s taking out my ponytail and flat-ironing my hair because “ponytails aren’t sexy.” And then she’s threatening to throw my flip-flops out as she shoves wedge sandals on my feet.
Forty minutes later, we head out the door.
Opening the front passenger door to Jill’s car, I notice someone walking across the parking lot toward us.
My heart starts beating and my body breaks into a sweat, even though I’m barely dressed. Somehow I stay where I am instead of running across the lot.
“Fucking really?” Jill says, following my gaze. “He’d better not be here to hurt you,” she grumbles under her breath. “Or so help me, I’ll bitch-slap his fun bags.”
“Shh,” I say, my heart pounding in my ears as he comes nearer.
His gaze glued on me, Sam steps onto the sidewalk. “Hey,” he says a little breathlessly.
“Hey,” I say, also as if slightly out of breath. Shocked, I stare at him in the coming dusk of night.
“You busy?” he asks.
I start to shake my head, but Jill snarls, “Yeah, we were just leaving. Going out.”
Sam glances at her.
“Sort of,” I mumble.
“Dammit, Peyton,” Jill says. “Don’t play hard to get or anything.”
“You have time to talk?” Sam asks, ignoring Jill.
“Sure, of course,” I say, surprised I sound halfway normal, given the anxiety coursing through me. A “talk” doesn’t necessarily mean what I want. And I want Sam.
“Could we go inside?” Sam takes a step closer to me.
Sparks fly through my body at his close proximity, his piercing blue eyes, and the tight swell—I can tell he’s holding his breath—of his sculpted chest. My body wants to jump into his arms, but I simply nod and turn around toward our apartment while reining in the emotions—hope, fear, and love—tumbling through me.
Behind us, Jill yells, “I’ll go over to Mindy’s! Three doors down. Call me if you need anything. My boxing gloves are on my desk, ready to go. You know exactly where I’ll punch him if I have to!”
I bite my lip to stop a giggle, but the moment I step inside, and Sam and I are alone, I feel weighed down and worried. I turn on a lamp by the couch, then move toward the fridge and grab a beer next to the tiramisu I brought home from Tony’s for Jill. I need something to calm my nerves. I hold the beer out for Sam. He shakes his head and watches me from the living room as I pop the top and take a sip.
“So,” I say slowly, “what’s going on?”
He steps closer to the kitchen as his eyes roam over me. “You were going out? Dressed like that?”
I set the beer down with a clank. Now anger mixes with my fear. “Really? I didn’t know I needed to check with you on how to dress. Even if you hadn’t ignored me for the last week, you wouldn’t have a say in my wardrobe.”
He stops at the counter across from me. His fingers grip the edge. “Shit, Peyton. I don’t care how you dress. It just looks like you’re going out on—on the prowl or something when we . . .” He frowns. “I’m not sure what we are, but I didn’t mean to ignore you. Everything just feels so fucked up right now.”
His words pound in my head. I’m not sure what we are . . . I’m not sure what we are . . . I’m not sure what we are.
I take a sip of beer and say nothing. He’s too close, even with the counter in between us. I want to run my hand through his curls and feel his strong arms close around me but it seems impossible. He’s only feet away but might as well be miles from me. Untouchable. Unattainable.
He runs a hand over his curls. “I want to be with you so bad . . .”
As my throat tightens, I somehow whisper, “But?”
He draws in a deep breath and slowly lets it out. “Seth’s adjusting. His meds have started to work, but he still obsessively thinks that we’re cheating on him. The thought of us together makes him angry. I’m not sure if it’s part of his disease, but he just can’t seem to let that grudge go. I want to be with you,” he repeats, looking down at the counter. “Yet I’m being torn in two.”
I swallow tightly, and will myself not to cry, not to make this harder for him. Yet my heart is sinking, shriveling, drying up as I stand in my kitchen holding a beer. I’m staring at the person I finally realized I’m totally in love with, but he’s not mine, and there’s nothing I can do. It may feel like he is choosing his brother over me, but it’s far more complicated than that. And his decision is something I have to respect, accept, and somehow get over. However, the sadness and loss crushing my heart at the moment doesn’t feel like it will ever end.
Slowly sitting down on a stool, Sam says, “I told you things were all right between Seth and me before. They’re not. I’ve spent the last three years mostly ignoring him. I have to start accepting who he is now. I have to let the old Seth go. And I need to be there for him. My mother feels that my absence is related to some of the way he’s been acting out recently. I don’t know if she’s right. But I’ve promised her to come home every other weekend if possible.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I say tightly, because it is. Sam should be with his brother more, and should accept him, disease and all. Though I understand him missing the old Seth, this brother needs him now.
He grips the back of his neck. “The people he works for at the diner are allowing him to come back. The girl he dates on and off”—he shakes his head—“who I knew nothing about, really cares about him and is trying to help. Seeing him with her made me aware that he has a chance at a good life. I suspect it will always contain drama, and maybe even periodic hospital stays, but I want him to have a family of his own.”
Feeling cold enough to shatter into a million shards of ice, I force myself to say, “He should have as normal a life as possible.”
He sighs. “And then there’s you. The girl I’ve always wanted.” His tightened lips signal a deep sadness, but there’s a sliver of hope in his eyes. “As things stand, Seth will always be an issue. He could show up at any time, acting like a crazy, jealous idiot and throwing a temper tantrum. I can’t see how being with me is fair to you with my commitment to him. I can’t even take you home to meet my parents. You deserve much more time and devotion than I can give at this point in my life; between my commitment to him and the band signing with the label, I’ll be gone more than I’m here.”
My chest hurts as I take in his twisted, torn expression. I hold the tears in somehow, but slowly, ever so slowly, as I start to understand what he’s saying, what that touch of hope in his gaze means, my desiccated heart starts coming back to life. I set my beer down and a laugh escapes me. “That’s it?”
He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
I lean over the counter toward him. “I can deal with not meeting your parents. And I can deal with Seth’s tantrums and your commitment to him. I can deal with your absence so you can be with your brother.” I now push myself up onto the counter and crawl across it, my barely covered butt in the air. Inches from his lips, I insist, “I’m not sure I can deal being without you.”
He doesn’t kiss me. Instead, his gaze searches mine. “Are you sure? Think about it, Peyton. If we do this, I’m not going to let you go. I know we’re young, but I’m certain that you’re the girl I want to marry someday. My brother is never going to be easy. He’ll be a constant thorn in our sides. But he’ll always be my brother, so when you get me, you get him and all his shit too.”
Well, if that isn’t a fuckload to contemplate, I’m not sure what is. Marriage to Sam and a lifetime with his crazy brother to boot? And wait—my palms suddenly feeling sweaty—did I just imagine it, or was he actually just talking about a wedding? Wow. Yikes. Wow.
I take a deep breath, but before I can speak, Sam says, “I never want you to regret being with me.”
Peering down at him, I try to stay rational even though I feel like swooning after his words. “Here’s the thing. Your brother is a huge pain in the butt, but it’s not his fault,” I say, knowing it’s the truth. “Maybe he’ll cause a rift or two in your family, maybe sometimes he’ll get crazy and screw things up with us. Yet being without you will feel so much worse than any of that.” I lean forward and bury my hands in his curls. “I’m not expecting everything to be rainbows and butterflies, Sam.” I lower my head, my lips centimeters from his, as he sits there staring at me, still as a photo. “I’m expecting to be with you whenever possible, and that’s all I need. You once said ‘sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. If the good is that freakin’ good.’?” I grab his jaw and our gazes lock onto each other’s. “Being with you is just that good,” I say, before pressing my lips to his.
He’s frozen for several too-long heart-thumping moments until he pulls me onto his lap, tugging my legs around his waist, and wraps his arms around me. He holds me tight as his mouth claims me. The press of his lips, the strong embrace of his arms, and the touch of his fingers on my back all express a mixture of joy and relief.
My own heart sings.
Soul mates. I’ve come to believe in them again.
As our lips separate, he stares down at me, his pretty blue eyes lit with happiness. He runs a thumb across my cheek, whispering, “?‘Lovesong.’ The Cure.”
Wrapping my hand around the one caressing my face, I whisper back, “?‘Never Tear Us Apart.’ INXS.”